Bush's prospective next Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, who chairs the board of the Nature Conservancy, in addition to being Chairman of Goldman Sachs, endorsed a statement from the Nature Conservancy decrying the U.S.'s refusal to participate in Kyoto as a serious threat to the nation's competitive abilities in the global market.

Until the United States passes its own limits on global warming emissions, innovative companies based here will lose out on opportunities to sell reduced emission credits to companies complying with the Kyoto Protocol overseas. Additionally, without enacting our own emission limits, U.S. companies will lose ground to their competitors in Europe, Canada, Japan, and other countries participating in the Protocol who are developing clean technologies....The United States needs to take steps now to maintain its role as a world economic leader while also forging a path to stop global warming.